Saddam's Execution

Are we back in the medieval times? It certainly felt like that yesterday watching on CNN international the final moments of Saddam before hanging. Although, Saddam was a terrible dictator and a criminal, it is hard to believe that in 2006 we will have the whole world watching images of the....hanging of someone... Hanging? In this century? As for the right-wingers who in their world of illusions believe that the hanging of a powerless ex-dictator was some sort of victory, they better remember the support that Donald Rumsfeld and his likes had given to Saddam Hussein in the past.

I obviously oppose the death penalty for anyone, including people as bad and as evil as Saddam Hussein. The death penalty is barbaric and uncivilized. I believe that Amnesty International was right to deplore the execution. Civilization and death penalty are incompatible with each other.

It should be also noted that Human Rights Watch also deplored the hanging of Hussein. That organization has for more than 15 years documented the human rights crimes committed by Hussein's regime, and has campaigned to bring the criminals to justice. However, as Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program said: “Saddam Hussein was responsible for massive human rights violations, but that can’t justify giving him the death penalty, which is a cruel and inhuman punishment”.